Chapter 5: Someone Else's Child

Since childhood, Wang Ling had kept a very low profile, and had always avoided being in the spotlight.

Of course, there were exceptions, such as the placement test. For this official evaluation, he had even specially researched how to control his own magnetic field so that it wouldn't crush the machine used in the test.

Yet no matter how hard he had tried to find a way to keep a low profile, in the end he had still been admitted into the elite class.

How on earth was he supposed to bring this up?

At dinner, Wang Ling absent-mindedly chewed a mouthful of rice, and couldn't help looking upward as he heaved a deep sigh.

Why was it so hard to be a bad student nowadays?

He definitely couldn't count on his parents to understand his pain.

The buffoon couple goggled at the letter for admittance into the elite class, personally presented to Wang Ling by the school's director of education. With eyes as large as gongs, they scanned the letter from top to bottom, afraid to miss a single word.

After a while, the middle-aged man, who still looked fairly good for his age with a small mustache and slicked-back hair, took off his black-rimmed glasses and cupped his chin in his hands as he looked at Wang Ling. "Student Wang Ling, I think we should have a word."

Although he was very unwilling to acknowledge this man, who until now had yet to reach the Foundation Establishment stage, as his own father, Wang Ling still very obediently put down his chopsticks.

No prizes for guessing, Wang Ling already knew what Father Wang was going to say. His first sentence would definitely be: "You've really let me down!"

And as expected, he had guessed right.

"You've really let me down!"

Father Wang let out a deep sigh and pinched his mustache as he said, "Couldn't you do a little worse in your test? You get such good grades every time, it's very awkward for your mother and me!"

Wang Ling wordlessly rolled his eyes. It wasn't like he deliberately set out to do so well! Like what happened today, it was totally an act of god!

"You should know that until now, your mother and I have not yet reached the Foundation Establishment stage. But you? Now there's nonsense talk on the street..." At this point, Father Wang covered his face, and even sobbed. "Not only are people saying that we picked you up off the street, some are even saying that I've been cuckolded!"

Wang Ling: "..."

"Next time, just don't try so hard in your test. Or just directly hand in a blank paper, don't listen to your mother about practicing moderation or whatever. All of that is sheer nonsense."

"..."

Wang Ling was speechless. He had never tried hard on any of his tests, alright?

Father Wang sighed. "If you get such good grades again, be careful that I don't spank you!"

Hearing this, Wang Ling's face turned black, and he straightaway broke his chopsticks.

"..."

Seeing this, Father Wang trembled. "Goddammit, I just bought these Ninth Heaven black iron chopsticks two days ago, and already another pair is broken!"

"Forget it, forget it, Ling Ling still can't control himself. Why would you bring this up when we're eating?" Compared with Father Wang, Mother Wang's attitude toward this had always been to let nature take its course; between the two of them, they always embarrassed Wang Ling.

"More than that, we need to hurry up and teach Ling Ling how to control his strength, and it's also more important that he eats well. Another pair of chopsticks broken... manufacturers nowadays, the quality is just getting worse and worse." Mother Wang sighed woefully; their household expenditure was going to increase again.

From a young age, Wang Ling had always had immense strength in his hands. After he broke that large sword at the age of one, Father and Mother Wang had changed almost all of their furniture, worried that Wang Ling would break them if he wasn't careful — if it wasn't made out of black jade, then it was made out of black iron, and even black diamond.

Looking at the broken pair of black iron chopsticks, the Wang couple couldn't help the mix of emotions that welled up in them. When they had been teaching Wang Ling how to use chopsticks, thousands of pairs had been sacrificed to the cause.

This could all be summed up in a single phrase: "pain in the ass."

But this phrase had been a constant for almost all of Wang Ling's life; things were a pain so often that he had gotten used to it.

After reaching the super high cultivation realm that everyone dreamed about, what then?

Make one hundred million 1 by performing tricks on the streets?

Sure, Wang Ling could smash towering mountains with his chest, but there weren't that many mountains around for him to smash! And nowadays, natural resources everywhere were protected by the nation — smashing a mountain would get you three years in prison at the very least, or the death penalty at most!

Power to dominate everything? Ambition to rule the planet?

Sure, Wang Ling had the strength to do all that, but he would prefer to stay home and read comics.

Unlimited magical powers, the great ability to turn time and space upside down?

Sure, Wang Ling could open up a spatio-temporal channel with his strength. But if he was caught by the spatial-temporal supervisor, considering how small their family estate was, any punishment he received could reduce them to ruin and poverty in an instant.

All in all, reaching a super high cultivation realm was not as relaxing or uncomplicated as one might have imagined.

Even if he was the king of cultivation, so what? He still had to deal with nonsense big and small every day, and make meticulous plans for keeping a low profile in order to avoid bringing disaster upon his muggle parents.

Wang Ling looked at the table full of dishes. As he ate a final mouthful of rice, he silently heaved a deep sigh: my heart is exhausted!

At his current realm, he could theoretically stop eating and it wouldn't affect him, since he only needed to absorb a bit of spirit energy from nature every day.

For him, eating now was purely a formality.

...

After returning to his bedroom, what Wang Ling liked to do most was lie on his small bed in the middle of the night and quietly look at a sky full of stars through his ceiling skylight.

It was only during this time that the noise in Wang Ling's ears would subside a little. Even though he couldn't completely block out the effects of his Mind-Reading Ability, they were just a low murmur in his ears during this time.

Compared with what it was like during the day, he felt that this was already pretty peaceful.

Many times, he had wondered if he was actually from another world. But ironclad evidence from DNA tests had dispelled his doubts when he was still very young. This muggle couple that was into public displays of affection were his real biological parents.

The most frightening thing in the world wasn't making progress and growing every day — it was if that rate of progress never seemed to end.

...

When he was younger, Wang Ling had attempted to figure out the limits of his realm. It wasn't until he was older that he realized that such limits simply didn't exist for him...

With a consistent increase in his realm at a rate of one stage every two years, he couldn't tell what the end for him was, and for a time, he had found this very terrifying.

But now, what terrified him more was his future high school life.

Who the hell knew what was going to happen to him?

He had initially planned to enter school quietly, but because of a freak combination of factors, he had been admitted into the elite class.

And then there was Lotus Sun... already he knew that she was going to be a troublesome person.

At first, he hadn't planned for their paths to cross often, but this trouble had already arrived on his doorstep.

Sitting upright on the bed, Wang Ling rubbed the skin between his eyebrows as his head hurt. Shortly after that, he stretched out one arm to take out a bag of snacks from his drawer.

Regardless what happens tomorrow...

At that moment, Wang Ling had decided... let's eat some crispy noodle snacks first to chase the uneasiness away!